Cases: California hits record high, tops U.S.

It was a bad day for California’s fight against the coronavirus.

First, the state surpassed New York for the highest number of aggregate cases in the country. Then, Gov. Gavin Newsom reported a record number of new daily cases, with 12,807 Californians testing positive, according to Wednesday’s latest figures.

“It’s another reminder, if I need to remind anybody, of the magnitude of the impact the virus continues to have,” Newsom said during a news conference Wednesday. “It’s a sober reminder of why we are taking things

as serious as we are. A sober reminder of why we put in that mask mandate in the state of California. A reminder of why we modified our openings as it relates to moving activities into outdoor spaces.”

All told, the rate of people testing positive over the last week increased to 7.6% in California, which Newsom called a cause of “concern.” The average number of daily new cases rose to 9,420 over the past week, while the average number of fatalities dropped slightly over the past week to 90. On Tuesday, 115 people died of COVID19 across the state.

The surging coronavirus numbers come at a time when the Bay Area, California and the nation all find themselves struggling to find the proper balance between checking the pandemic and reopening the economy. The recent spike in cases has caused public officials to pull back reopening ambitions and reinforce proper health and safety precautions.

California’s coronavirus cases have been skyrocketing over the past month. By Wednesday afternoon, the state reported 421,197 overall cases, surpassing New York’s count of 413,595, according to data gathered by The Chronicle and the New York Times.

For perspective, California is the country’s most populous state with 40 million people compared with New York’s 19.5 million. New York’s per capita case rate is still double that of California, with 2,126 cases per 100,000 people, compared with 1,042 cases per 100,000 people in California, according to the New York Times. California’s fatality rate is also much lower — 20 fatalities per 100,000 people compared with New York’s 166 fatalities per 100,000 people.

But cases in California have been rising at a much faster rate recently than in New York. The highest number of cases and clusters per capita are in Southern California, although cases have surged over the past month in the Bay Area, as well.

The Chronicle reported that California cases rose by 11,302 by Wednesday evening, while the statewide death toll rose by 155 to 8,046. The Bay Area reported 726 new cases, raising the region’s overall total to 44,799. Six more deaths were reported, pushing the total to 731 overall.

The number of COVID19 patients in Bay Area hospitals surged to a record 747 on Tuesday, according to state data released Wednesday, marking the 17th consecutive day the number has grown.

The recent surge has alarmed state and local officials, triggering a pullback from reopening the economy in order to not overwhelm the health care system. In San Francisco, a 23% increase in hospitalizations over the past week put the county on the state’s watch list.

“When we talk about the curve and our surge, I’m very concerned that as cases increase, it’s plausible we could get in a New Yorklike situation in the late summer or early fall,” the city’s Public Health Department Director Dr. Grant Colfax said during a news conference Wednesday. “That’s why everyone needs to do their part to flatten the curve.”

Case spikes result in hospitalized patients about two weeks later, Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association said. The state has warned that the health care system needs to be prepared to treat up to 25,000 coronavirus patients — more than three times the current number, she added. The state reported 7,091 coronavirus patients in hospitals and 2,006 patients in intensive care Tuesday.

“We have an ability to surge, but we may have the need for more,” Coyle said during a news call Wednesday. “We need to be on watch at all times.”

Currently, about 45,000 of the state’s 50,000 staffed hospital beds are filled, and medical facilities could add up to 20,000 more beds, Coyle said. State and county alternate care sites can also be set up to provide lower levels of care to nonCOVID patients.

Southern California counties have the highest hospitalization rates, but hot spots have popped up in the Central Valley, including San Joaquin County over the past week, Coyle said. In the Bay Area, the number of patients in ICU rooms remain at alltime highs, but the rate of growth slowed last week compared to previous weeks.

In times of disaster, the state usually relies on mutual aid between counties, which has already led to patient transfers from Imperial County to locations as far away as Sacramento, Coyle said. But that doesn’t work as well when the entire state is under strain during a pandemic. The new tactic will be less about moving patients to another area and more about bringing resources to the place in need, Coyle said.

The main concern is staffing critical care beds with nurses and doctors who have specialized training, Coyle said.

“Our capacity depends on the availability of the mix of all of those things, beds and staff and (personal protective equipment) and testing, and if any one is in short supply, it reduces our ability to maximize capacity in the state of California,” she said.

Newsom said Wednesday that California burns through 46 million masks a month. The state has distributed and stockpiled hundreds of millions of masks and is actively procuring more, he said. He added that given the “unprecedented” number of masks sent out, it is “unacceptable” that frontline health care workers don’t have enough, which unions continue to protest.

The good news about hospitalizations, Coyle said, is that the average length of stay in the ICU for a coronavirus patient has shortened as medical experts learn more about the disease and use therapeutic drugs, including remdesivir and dexamethasone, to improve outcomes.

Also on Wednesday, San Francisco officials announced a significant expansion of the city’s coronavirus testing efforts, with plans to increase testing capacity by 1,400 tests daily by early August.

An existing city testing facility on the Embarcadero will add 400 testing slots, with prioritization given to essential workers. Two additional mobile test sites will also roll out in the next two weeks, which will focus on the city’s hardesthit communities, including the Mission, Excelsior and Bayview.

Each site will have the capacity to test 250 people daily. A third fixedlocation site will open early next month in the city’s southeast corridor, similar to locations in South of Market and the Embarcadero, with capacity to administer 500 tests daily. City officials are working with community organizations to determine the location.

The announcement comes on the heels of a San Francisco health order issued Monday requiring private health care providers to give the public greater access to testing. Private health care providers are now required to offer sameday testing for people with symptoms or who have been in close contact with an infected person.

Colfax and Mayor London Breed cautioned during a news conference Wednesday that “we can’t test our way out of a pandemic.”

“Getting tested is not a passport to do whatever you want,” Breed said. “You can still get infected at any moment.”

San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Mike Massa and Dominic Fracassa contributed to this report.